How to minimize down time with the WCBD tool during the deployment process

The following factors should be considered to minimize downtime in a production clustered environment:

1. Set rollout.update to true.
Navigate to your deployment.properties file.

For Example:
/opt/IBM/WebSphere/CommerceServer70/wcbd/deploy/server/wcbd-deploy.properties.template (This is a sample path. Use your deployed properties file.)

Find the following snippet:

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

# rollout.update
#
# "true" if roll-out update should be executed; "false" otherwise. This option
# only works for clustered environments w/ DMGR.
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
rollout.update=false

Change 'rollout.update=false' to 'rollout.update=true'

This enables roll-out updates to occur against all cluster members, keeping the system up for high availability.

2. Disable automatic synchronization on the nodes during the roll-out update event.
Follow the steps in the following document: File synchronization service settings.


3. WebSphere Application Server has the following timeout properties that can be set on the Deployment Manager (DMGR) to either stop or start the AppServer JVMs.

com.ibm.websphere.management.application.updateClusterTask.serverStopWaitTimeout

com.ibm.websphere.management.application.updatesync.appExpansionTimeout

More information on these properties is provided in WebSphere Application Server Information Center: Java™ virtual machine custom properties.

Example settings are: serverStopWaitTimeout = 1800s and appExpansionTimeout=900s, as an initial starting point.